From The Lunar and Planetary Laboratory
At
4.12.24
Media Contact
Mikayla Mace Kelley
Science Writer, University Communications
mikaylamace@arizona.edu
520-621-1878
Research Contacts
Erik Asphaug
Lunar and Planetary Laboratory
asphaug@arizona.edu
Angela Marusiak
Lunar and Planetary Laboratory
amarusiak@arizona.edu
520-621-6963
Artist’s concept of an Artemis astronaut deploying an instrument on the lunar surface. NASA
University of Arizona Lunar and Planetary Laboratory researchers will have a hand in two of the three instruments NASA selected for deployment on the lunar surface by Artemis III astronauts.
Once installed near the moon’s South Pole, the instruments will collect valuable scientific data about the lunar environment, the lunar interior and how to sustain a long-duration human presence on the moon, which will help prepare NASA to send astronauts to Mars.
The instruments were specifically chosen because of their unique installation requirements that necessitate deployment by humans during moonwalks, a NASA press release explained. All three payloads were selected for further development towards flight on Artemis III, which is targeted to launch in 2026. Final manifesting decisions about the mission will be determined at a later date. Members of these payload teams will become members of NASA’s Artemis III science team.
Artemis III, the first mission to return astronauts to the surface of the moon in more than 50 years, will explore the south polar region of the moon. Several proposed landing regions for the mission are located amid some of the oldest parts of the moon. Together with the permanently shadowed regions, they provide the opportunity to learn about the history of the moon through previously unstudied lunar materials.
Mapping moonquakes
Dani DellaGiustina, assistant professor of planetary sciences in the UArizona Lunar and Planetary Laboratory, is working as part of the team to design and build two seismometers for the Lunar Environment Monitoring Station, or LEMS. One will be tuned to detect deep moonquakes and the other to detect shallow moonquakes.
Artistic rendering of the fully deployed Lunar Environment Monitoring Station (LEMS) after delivery to the Moon by a lander (gray structure) (Image credit: NASA GSFC)
LEMS Engineering Unit during integration at GSFC. This LEMS prototype incorporates a compact mass spectrometer provided by GSFC and a broadband seismometer provided by the University of Arizona. The unit’s Avionics manage its power and thermal states and initiate monthly communication sessions with ground stations on Earth to transmit collected data. (Image credit: NASA GSFC)
“I am stoked because I have been working for years to develop seismic instruments not just for the moon, but also for asteroids and other bodies like Europa,” DellaGiustina said. “So, to see one of them make it to the next step, which is flight opportunity, is really exciting.”
LEMS is led by Mehdi Benna from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. NASA Goddard will build and operate LEMS. DellaGiustina is a co-investigator along with Hop Bailey, a UArizona Space Institute program manager, and Angela Marusiak, an assistant research professor of planetary sciences. Veronica Bray, associate research professor in planetary sciences, is assisting with science operations.
LEMS is a compact, autonomous seismometer suite designed to carry out continuous, long-term monitoring of ground motion from moonquakes, in the lunar south polar region. The instrument will characterize the regional structure of the moon’s crust and mantle, which will add valuable information to lunar formation and evolution models. LEMS is intended to operate on the lunar surface from three months up to two years and may become a key station in a future global lunar geophysical network.
Moonquakes have a few sources, including the same gravitational tug between the moon and Earth that causes ocean tides. Also, in the same way that houses creak as temperatures rise, the moon trembles as it expands and contracts in response to dramatic temperature swings.
“The big difference between the Earth and the moon is the moon does not have plate tectonics. There is some evidence of faults on the moon, however,” Marusiak said. “One of our goals is to figure out if those faults are active and how active they are, and if they could cause a risk for the astronauts or their habitats.”
Lastly, the researchers also anticipate that LEMS will detect meteor impacts.
Treasures beneath the surface
Erik Asphaug, professor of planetary sciences in the UArizona Lunar and Planetary Laboratory, is a collaborator on the Lunar Dielectric Analyzer, or LDA, which will reveal what lies a meter deep in the moon’s regolith, which is airless soil.
“As a child of the Apollo era, I find it amazing to be part of this adventure to put an instrument on the moon,” Asphaug said. “I’ve always been a big fan of radio and radar techniques to find out what’s inside of things. I’m most excited to see if the regolith near the south pole has active frost.”
LDA will measure how the moon’s regolith responds to an electric field, which depends on porosity and the presence of volatiles – substances that evaporate – especially ice. It will gather essential information about the structure of the moon’s subsurface and monitor whether volatiles migrate as the LDA goes in and out of shadow.
Hideaki “Hirdy” Miyamoto – a University of Tokyo professor, Planetary Science Institute affiliated scientist and adjunct professor at the University of Adelaide – leads the LDA, which is supported by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency.
“Different materials propagate radio signals at different speeds,” Asphaug said, “so when you send a signal and measure its reflection, its speed tells you about composition and porosity. This will be important not only for lunar science, but for establishing a permanent human presence on the moon.”
With the Artemis campaign, NASA will land the first woman, first person of color and its first international partner astronaut on the moon, and establish long-term exploration for scientific discovery and preparation for human missions to Mars for the benefit of all.
“It is exciting to see a new generation of Lunar and Planetary Laboratory scientists build on our legacy of lunar exploration, dating back to even before Apollo,” said Mark Marley, the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory director. “Our first major research program was to map the moon. Now we are helping send instruments to detect what lies beneath that surface.”
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The Lunar and Planetary Laboratory is a research center for planetary science located in Tucson, Arizona. It is also a graduate school, constituting the Department of Planetary Sciences at the University of Arizona. The Lunar and Planetary Laboratory is one of the world’s largest programs dedicated exclusively to planetary science in a university setting. The Lunar and Planetary Lab collection is held at the University of Arizona Special Collections Library.
The Lunar and Planetary Laboratory was founded in 1960 by astronomer Gerard Kuiper. Kuiper had long been a pioneer in observing the Solar System, especially the Moon, at a time when this was unfashionable among astronomers. Among his contributions are the discovery of Miranda and Nereid, the detection of carbon dioxide on Mars and of methane on Titan, and the prediction of the Kuiper Belt.
Kuiper came to Tucson looking for greater independence than he had enjoyed at The University of Chicago, the chance to build a community dedicated to solar system studies, and also to be closer to southern Arizona’s many potential sites for world-class observatories, such as Kitt Peak National Observatory (founded in 1958) [below]. LPL was established under the auspices of the University of Arizona, with Kuiper serving as director until his death.
The Lunar and Planetary Laboratory’s endeavors are truly interdisciplinary. The accumulated knowledge and techniques of astronomy, physics, chemistry, geology, geophysics, geochemistry, atmospheric science, and engineering are all brought to bear upon the single goal of studying planetary systems. Many students come to The Lunar and Planetary Laboratory having studied only one or two of these subjects in detail, so a broad-based curriculum is essential.
In 1973, the university established a graduate Department of Planetary Sciences, operating continuously with The Lunar and Planetary Laboratory. This provided an administrative framework for The Lunar and Planetary Laboratory to admit graduate students and take a greater role in teaching. The Lunar and Planetary Laboratory’s chief officer is simultaneously “head” of the department and “director” of the laboratory.
The University of Arizona enrolls over 49,000 students in 19 separate colleges/schools, including The University of Arizona College of Medicine in Tucson and Phoenix and the James E. Rogers College of Law, and is affiliated with two academic medical centers (Banner – University Medical Center Tucson and Banner – University Medical Center Phoenix). The University of Arizona is one of three universities governed by the Arizona Board of Regents. The university is part of the Association of American Universities and is the only member from Arizona, and also part of the Universities Research Association.
Known as the Arizona Wildcats (often shortened to “Cats”), The University of Arizona’s intercollegiate athletic teams are members of the Pac-12 Conference of the NCAA. The University of Arizona athletes have won national titles in several sports, most notably men’s basketball, baseball, and softball. The official colors of the university and its athletic teams are cardinal red and navy blue.
After the passage of the Morrill Land-Grant Act of 1862, the push for a university in Arizona grew. The Arizona Territory’s “Thieving Thirteenth” Legislature approved The University of Arizona in 1885 and selected the city of Tucson to receive the appropriation to build the university. Tucson hoped to receive the appropriation for the territory’s mental hospital, which carried a $100,000 allocation instead of the $25,000 allotted to the territory’s only university Arizona State University was also chartered in 1885, but it was created as Arizona’s normal school, and not a university). Flooding on the Salt River delayed Tucson’s legislators, and by the time they reached Prescott, back-room deals allocating the most desirable territorial institutions had been made. Tucson was largely disappointed with receiving what was viewed as an inferior prize.
With no parties willing to provide land for the new institution, the citizens of Tucson prepared to return the money to the Territorial Legislature until two gamblers and a saloon keeper decided to donate the land to build the school. Construction of Old Main, the first building on campus, began on October 27, 1887, and classes met for the first time in 1891 with 32 students in Old Main, which is still in use today. Because there were no high schools in Arizona Territory, the university maintained separate preparatory classes for the first 23 years of operation.
Research
The University of Arizona is classified among “R1: Doctoral Universities – Very high research activity”. UArizona is the fourth most awarded public university by National Aeronautics and Space Administration for research. The University of Arizona was awarded over $300 million for its Lunar and Planetary Laboratory (LPL) to lead NASA’s 2007–08 mission to Mars to explore the Martian Arctic, and $800 million for its OSIRIS-REx mission, the first in U.S. history to sample an asteroid.
The LPL’s work in the Cassini spacecraft orbit around Saturn is larger than any other university globally.
The University of Arizona laboratory designed and operated the atmospheric radiation investigations and imaging on the probe. The University of Arizona operates the HiRISE camera, a part of the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.
While using the HiRISE camera in 2011, University of Arizona alumnus Lujendra Ojha and his team discovered proof of liquid water on the surface of Mars—a discovery confirmed by NASA in 2015.
The University of Arizona receives more NASA grants annually than the next nine top NASA/JPL-Caltech-funded universities combined. The University of Arizona’s Lunar and Planetary Laboratory is actively involved in ten spacecraft missions: Cassini VIMS; Grail; the HiRISE camera orbiting Mars; the Juno mission orbiting Jupiter; Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO); Maven, which will explore Mars’ upper atmosphere and interactions with the sun; Solar Probe Plus, a historic mission into the Sun’s atmosphere for the first time; Rosetta’s VIRTIS; WISE; and OSIRIS-REx, the first U.S. sample-return mission to a near-earth asteroid, which launched on September 8, 2016.
The University of Arizona students have been selected as Truman, Rhodes, Goldwater, and Fulbright Scholars. According to The Chronicle of Higher Education, UArizona is among the top producers of Fulbright awards.
The University of Arizona is a member of the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy , a consortium of institutions pursuing research in astronomy. The association operates observatories and telescopes, notably Kitt Peak National Observatory just outside Tucson.
Led by Roger Angel, researchers in the Steward Observatory Mirror Lab at The University of Arizona are working in concert to build the world’s most advanced telescope. Known as the Giant Magellan Telescope (CL), it will produce images 10 times sharper than those from the Earth-orbiting Hubble Telescope.
GMT will ultimately cost $1 billion. Researchers from at least nine institutions are working to secure the funding for the project. The telescope will include seven 18-ton mirrors capable of providing clear images of volcanoes and riverbeds on Mars and mountains on the moon at a rate 40 times faster than the world’s current large telescopes. The mirrors of the Giant Magellan Telescope will be built at The University of Arizona and transported to a permanent mountaintop site in the Chilean Andes where the telescope will be constructed.
Reaching Mars in March 2006, the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter contained the HiRISE camera, with Principal Investigator Alfred McEwen as the lead on the project. This National Aeronautics and Space Agency mission to Mars carrying the UArizona-designed camera is capturing the highest-resolution images of the planet ever seen. The journey of the orbiter was 300 million miles. In August 2007, The University of Arizona, under the charge of Scientist Peter Smith, led the Phoenix Mars Mission, the first mission completely controlled by a university. Reaching the planet’s surface in May 2008, the mission’s purpose was to improve knowledge of the Martian Arctic. The Arizona Radio Observatory , a part of The University of Arizona Department of Astronomy Steward Observatory , operates the Submillimeter Telescope on Mount Graham.
The National Science Foundation funds the iPlant Collaborative in with a $50 million grant. In 2013, iPlant Collaborative received a $50 million renewal grant. Rebranded in late 2015 as “CyVerse”, the collaborative cloud-based data management platform is moving beyond life sciences to provide cloud-computing access across all scientific disciplines.
In June 2011, the university announced it would assume full ownership of the Biosphere 2 scientific research facility in Oracle, Arizona, north of Tucson, effective July 1. Biosphere 2 was constructed by private developers (funded mainly by Texas businessman and philanthropist Ed Bass) with its first closed system experiment commencing in 1991. The university had been the official management partner of the facility for research purposes since 2007.
